Hernando de SotoThe explorer and soldier discovered the Mississippi, but blazed a trail of death across the American South.

Governor Martin HouseThe De Soto site was found in the yards of the one-time home of Florida Governor John Martin.

ExploreSouthernHistory.com - DeSoto Winter Encampment Site, Florida

ExploreSouthernHistory.com - DeSoto Winter Encampment Site, Florida

DeSoto Winter Encampment - Tallahassee, Florida

De Soto Winter Encampment SiteArchaeologists have located the site where Hernando de Soto spent the winter of 1540-1541 near the heart of downtown Tallahassee.

Winter Campsite of DeSoto

Hernando de Soto and his army spent years exploring the American South, but while many sites are identified with the explorers, their presence has positively been identified in only one - Tallahassee, Florida.

Almost within sight of Florida's capitol complex is the De Soto Winter Encampment Site. Now a small state-owned park area, the site preserves the ground where De Soto and his men camped during the winter of 1539-1540.

The location was then the site of the Native American village of Anhaica Apalache, one of the principal villages of the Apalachee Nation.

De Soto and his army arrived here in the late fall of 1539 after blazing a trail of death and destruction northward up the peninsula of Florida. In addition to battles with resisting Native Americans, the Spanish explorers had enslaved men and women, raided the stocks of food the Indians needed to survive the winter and destroyed villages and towns.

After fighting their way up the state and across the Suwannee River, the army entered the territory of the Apalachee. The warriors of this nation resisted with hit and run attacks and by burning many of their own fields. Despite such resistance, however, DeSoto pushed his way west to the area of present-day Tallahassee and occupied Anhaica Apalache.

There he established a winter camp. Many of the soldiers occupied homes they had taken from the Apalachee inhabitants of the town, but the Spanish also built new structures and fortified the village to defend themselves against attack.

In addition to consuming the supplies of food they found at Anhaica, the conquistadors also raided other villages in the area, taking food and enslaving any inhabitants they could catch. The Apalachee responded by ambushing small detachments and by setting fire to the winter encampment. It was partially destroyed, but DeSoto and his men remained.

Horsemen left this site on a rapid return to Tampa Bay to communicate with the ships there and direct them north to the mouth of the St. Marks River. There De Soto's men made contact with them again and brought ashore supplies. De Soto ordered the vessels to move west along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. He intended to turn inland and eventually reconnect with his ships somewhere to the west around present-day Pensacola or Mobile.

The Spanish spent the winter at Anhaica Apalache and likely observed Christmas at a special mass there. It has been claimed by some that this was the first Christmas observance in the continental United States - and it may have been - but it is also possible that earlier explorers or traders actually were the first to observe Christmas in the country.

After spending the winter in the village, De Soto and his army - with a long train of slaves in chains - turned north into Georgia. They expedition penetrated the country as far north as North Carolina and eventually crossed the Mississippi River.

It had long been assumed that the location of the winter encampment was somewhere in the vicinity of the modern city of Tallahassee, but its exact location had proved enigmatic.

Archaeologists determined that the large mound group at Lake Jackson had been abandoned years before the arrival of DeSoto and it was feared for many years that the site had been lost beneath the pavement and concrete of the modern city.

The late B. Calvin Jones, an archaeologist for the state, however, located unusual artifacts while investigating the grounds of the Governor John Martin House. They turned out to be relics of the DeSoto expedition. Additional excavations at the site revealed such unique items as coins, pieces of chain mail armor, tips from crossbow darts and even pig bones (swine were introduced into the United States by Hernando de Soto).

The site is now a small, largely undeveloped, state park. A marker and interpretive panel tell the story of the site, but there are no other facilities. To visit the park, follow Apalachee Parkway from the Capitol to Magnolia and turn right. Then turn right on Lafayette to DeSoto Park Drive.

The park can be visited during daylight hours. There is no entry fee.

Marker at De Soto SiteThis state marker helps visitors understand the significance of Tallahassee's De Soto Site.

A Capital CityThe DeSoto Encampment Site is almost within sight of today's Florida State Capitol. What is now Tallahassee was then the capital of the Apalachee Nation.